Bacon Wars

When I wake up in the morning, I need about an hour to become normal. And by normal I mean not extremely sensitive to smells and sounds. If I wake up to a loud noise, not only does my heart race, like a normal person, but I swing into a full panic attack. Furthermore, if the smell of cooking meat in the morning is what wakes me, I will wake up and run to the bathroom to puke. The smell of meat in the morning is like the smell of a recycling plant, the smell of a garbage can next to a wharf, the smell of a sewage treatment center, the smell of the men’s room in a bar. You get it. It’s bad. I had a roommate once in DC who thought that eating bacon every fucking morning was a good thing. I think there were only two or three mornings that I didn’t vomit while I lived in DC. After I’ve been awake about an hour, it’s fine. But until then, you’ll find me staying far away from Bob Evans.

So my roommates have decided that bacon in the morning is a good thing. Apparently they bought a huge rasher of bacon at Costco. But it makes me sick. Really sick. I honestly could not remember the last time I had puked until last weekend, when they made bacon in the morning. I had warned them, repeatedly, that if they wanted to make bacon, they should warn me the night before so I could wake up with that one hour window. This warning was not heeded and they were forced to listen to me coughing, gagging, and other assorted icky things in the bathroom.

So then ANOTHER roommate, not one of the ones who made the foul pig in the morning, suggested that I have a lot of sensory issues that make it quite possible that I am autistic. Hee. Okay, I’m not autistic, but here are some of my sensory issues.

1) Cotton balls. I can’t touch them. They squeak. And they feel all weird. Ditto for velvet. And corduroy. As a child, I would only wear synthetic fibers from the age of seven to about twelve. I was a polyester queen.

2) The smell thing in the morning. Enough said. (Just to add, this is why all of my bathroom products are as scent-less as I can find. Imagine being a woman trying to find a body wash with no scent. It’s hard to be me sometimes.)

3) I can’t eat in the dark. Especially in the dark in front of a television. The flickering. The noise. I guess I think Freddie’s gonna come get me. (One of my roommate’s can’t stand the sound of chewing. If someone’s eating, she insists that either the tv or radio be on. Even if it’s her. So I don’t think the not eating in the dark thing is that bad.)

4) Okay, this is one that isn’t as bad as it used to be. The strangers touching me thing. I hate it when strangers touch me. Hate it. I start to panic. And the hyperventilating is bad. But since I’m now a mass transit aficionado, this little sensory thing isn’t as bad as it used to be. I don’t go out of my way to touch random people, but if they brush against me, I don’t freak out.

5) I don’t have many weird taste issues, but texture stuff is totally fair game. I can’t eat cold bread because it changes the texture of the bread. When I first moved into my house, the cat would get into my food cupboard (he’s stupid about everything except how to get to food) and eat my bread. My roommates suggested I put the bread in the fridge and I stared at them in horror. I don’t eat cold bread. It’s gross. Peas have that weird texture, too. I don’t eat them.

6) Baby products don’t smell nice on anyone but babies. The smell of baby powder kind of makes me gag. Biker Boy recently tried out a perfume (he’s trying to find a signature scent) and told me it smelled like baby powder and sure enough, it did. I made him go wash his wrist. Likewise, baby oil should be limited to infants. Johnson and Johnson would be a horrible place for me to work